Alarmed by his players' sudden disinterest against an overmatched opponent, the mild-mannered Cole gathered them in front of their dugout and chewed them out.

"Normally I don't raise my voice," said Cole, the Brandywine Heights baseball coach, "but a fire needed to be lit under their rear ends. We weren't into the game much. We were going through the motions."

The Bullets responded by scoring 10 runs in the bottom of the third and finishing a 17-2 blowout win over Esperanza Academy in a PIAA Class AA first-round game Monday at War Memorial Field.

Brandywine Heights (19-4), the District 3 champion, dispatched the Toros (11-6), the District 12 runners-up, and advanced to the state quarterfinals Thursday against District 1 champion New Hope-Solebury, a 10-9 winner over Pine Grove.

Suffice to say, the Bullets' next game won't be nearly as easy as their PIAA opener.

They scored five runs before Esperanza recorded an out. Of the 13 batters Brandywine pitcher Kyle Stoudt faced, only two hit the ball to the outfield.

"We didn't know what we were going to get," Cole said. "We kept reinforcing to them that this was a state playoff game. No matter what they (the Toros) looked like, I told our guys they had to play strong for seven innings or until it ended."

The Bullets, however, started to lose their focus. One of them stepped to the plate and turned to the public address announcer to correct the pronunciation of his name. Another smiled broadly after a pitch buzzed him.

Then, in the top of the third, they committed two errors on routine plays, allowing Esperanza to score two runs. That was the boiling point for Cole.

"He told us to concentrate," Stoudt said. "We didn't concentrate at all in the top of the third. We were out there thinking that the other team was going to roll over. He wanted us to play like it was a state game."

They got the message. Brandywine's first four batters scored before the Toros botched a chance to turn a double play and get out of the inning. Jacob Seyler cracked a two-run triple, Caleb Erb stroked a two-run single and Stoudt ended it by launching a three-run homer to right.

Stoudt finished the day 4-for-4 with five RBIs and the win.

"Yeah, it was hard (to stay focused)," Stoudt said. "When we're on the bench and it's not a tight game, everybody is loose. Sometimes you get too loose and then you have to re-focus."